


Things of the Past

by Pasikoo



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:00:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26930278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pasikoo/pseuds/Pasikoo
Summary: A young man with a story to tell pays Jessica a late night visit.
Kudos: 1





	Things of the Past

_"If you say that with great power comes great responsibility, I swear I will throw up on you."_   
_-Jessica Jones_

Past is a curious thing. Most times you think it's something you can leave behind, and never have to face again. Like it's tucked away somewhere, put neatly in a box and stuffed in a closet. No matter if the past is a good one, a bad one or something you never really knew existed. It's gone and it will never affect you, as you continue your life. But sometimes the things you put away a long time ago may resurface, and make you question everything you thought you knew.

* * *

If someone had told me when I was a kid how I would be spending my Friday nights as an adult I am pretty sure I would have felt bad for myself.

It was already dark outside and I knew that if I had any sense in my head I would let it be and move on. I knew that if I had sense I would be outside and doing something I would later regret but that would ease the frustration I felt now. But here I sat, looking at my computer screen alone in my office and hoping it would tell me something that would lead me out of the mess I had again found myself in.

I sighed, and took another sip from my glass. Somewhere a police siren was wailing. I heard a dog barking and somebody in the building was arguing. I tried to ignore it all. It wasn't my problem to worry about. I had enough of my own. Enough shit of my own. 

Why couldn't anything ever be simple? Why did everything in my life, things that I hoped would be easy and quick to solve, end up as a mess I had no idea how to deal with? Why wouldn't...

Suddenly there was a knock on the door. I looked up and saw a silhouette of a man behind the glass. Involuntarily I tensed. A moment later the door opened slowly, in a manner that indicated the door was unsure whether it was allowed to do so. 

I saw a young man, perhaps in his late twenties, light brown skin and casually dressed, with a brightly colored back bag on his shoulder. I relaxed. The kid looked something that belonged to this part of town as much as a hay in the needle stack.

"Is this Alias Investigations?" he said. He looked around and the bare walls of my office suspiciously. Clearly he had expected something else.

"That's what it should say on the door. Don't let the glamorous surroundings dazzle you."

He stepped in, needlessly correcting the position of the back bag, and looking even more unsure of himself than a moment before. "Is you name... I mean are you Jessica Jones?"

I looked at him over the rim of the whiskey glass and took a sip. "The one and only. Who's asking?"

"Nick, Nicholas Parker", the young man said and held his hand out at me. I gave him a look that made him to lose the little confidence he had managed to scrape together. Then I gave him a smile that made him to ease up a bit. At least the kid had manners.

"Okay, Nick Nicholas", I said and leaned back in my chair. This was as good excuse as any to take a break. "Sit down. What can I do for you?"

I looked at the young man, took another sip and couldn't help but sounding bitter as I continued. "You want me to follow your girlfriend to find out whether she's screwing your best friend behind your back?"

The kid looked at me surprised. "Oh no, nothing like that", he said and smiled meekly. "It's more like... Well, I would like to ask you for an advice. Or hear your opinion on something. Something I think you can understand better than most people."

"How come?"

The kid cleared his throat and looked almost as if he was asking for a price from a hooker. "I mean. I've heard you can, you know, do things."

I gave him another sarcastic smile. "I can do a lot of things. You have to be more specific."

He shifted his position in the uncomfortable chair and looked straight at me. "I mean, you have, like, powers?"

I let out a deep sigh. God damn it, I thought. Another fanboy. "What's it to you?"

"It's just, I mean, I think I have too."

That took me by surprise. Then again, he could still be a nutcase. It wouldn't be the first one.

"Okay. Tell me more."

"Well, first of all, I have had... well, these visions, for a couple of months. They're sort of negative images, about things that are happening or about to happen somewhere near me. Especially if there's something even potentially dangerous about them." 

"So, you're becoming a psychic. Congratulations. Maybe you should go on television."

"You don't understand", the young man said and shook his head. "They come without any warning and shut everything else off. Sometimes when I'm on a bus on my way to work it's almost as if it's on overdrive. Even if I wanted to, there's no way I could do anything to prevent any of the things I see."

The young man pressed his face to his palms. "Sometimes I think I'm losing my mind."

I looked at the kid. A part of me felt bad for him.

"You want a drink?"

He looked up and nodded. I took out another glass and poured him a drink. The kid took a sip and grimaced like a little child. Not much of a drinker, apparently.

"You have any idea what's causing it?"

The kid looked at the whiskey in the glass he was holding, then up at me. "No. I mean yes. Maybe."

"Make up your mind, kid."

"Let me show you something", he said, put the glass down on my desk and took out his wallet.

The kid looked a bit red in the face, and I wondered whether it was possible for the whiskey to get into his head that quickly. A moment later he gave me a photograph. It was worn out and looked as if it had been in his wallet for a long time.

It was a photo of a couple. The man was tallish, and sort of handsome, in a goofy kind of way. The woman was black, and shorter. They were leaning against what looked like low stone wall, close to each other and smiling broadly at the camera.

"The woman on the right is my mother, Rita", the young man explained. "And beside her is my father, Peter. The photo was taken in 1979, I think. Soon after they had started dating, a few years before I was born. Apparently they met at the Bugle where my mother worked as a secretary."

"Nice looking couple", I said and gave the photo back to him. 

"They were very happy", he said, looking at the photo. I didn't say anything and finally he looked up. ""My father died a few years ago, you see. He had cancer."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

He shrugged and looked at the photo again. "They had almost forty happy years together."

"Is your mother alive?"

The young man shook his head. "No. She died couple of months ago."

He looked up and continued in a serious, matter of fact manner.

"My mother was one of the casualties. She was visiting one of her friends in downtown when those... alien things attacked. Apparently she had rushed to save a child or something. So like my mother. I've been told she didn't have a chance to even understand what was happening, let alone to feel anything. I often wonder whether I could have done anything if I had been there."

"I seriously doubt it."

"I know", the young man said and sighed. "I was on my way from work at the time. One minute everything was normal, and the next moment it was like a war zone. Explosions, things flying... The bus I was in got pinned under one of those... machines or whatever they were. We were there trapped almost half an hour before that hammer guy came and we got out. I was still in shock when the call about mother came. Everything was so unreal."

I cleared my throat. "Look kid, I don't want to sound cold or uncaring, but I don't see what all this have to do with anything."

"I understand", the young man said and nodded. He looked at the photo and seemed to be unsure how to continue.

"Okay", he said finally and looked at me. "Have you ever heard of Spider-Man?"

I shook my head. "Sounds like an exterminator."

The kid let out a short, nervous laugh, still looking a bit flushed. "No, no, it's nothing like that. He was... a kind of vigilante here in New York, back in the day. There's lots of stuff of him on-line."

I turned to my computer and managed to dug up in a few moments a couple of old newspaper articles. The kid was right. It seemed there had been a character of that name in late 1970's. 

It looked like he hadn't been involved in anything major, to put it kindly. Even police hadn't been that keen of trying to get him behind bars. At least none of the articles didn't suggest that. He had operated for a few years, and then disappeared as mysteriously as he had appeared. 

I scrolled one of the articles down and saw a couple of black and white photos. In one of them he was posing with a group of what looked like Asian martial artists. His costume didn't fit very well, and the mask he was wearing seemed to include some sort of goggles. 

In another photo he was apparently crawling up the wall of a skyscraper, but the photo was too low quality to make much out of it. Just a tiny grainy grey figure on a grey surface.

I looked at the kid. "Okay, but what's a vigilante from seventies has to do with you? Or your parents?"

The young man looked uncomfortable. "Well, that part is a bit hard to explain. You see, after my mother's death I've tried to go through her things. She lived in Queens, in a house that originally belonged to my great-aunt."

I poured myself a drink and let him continue. It wasn't a good business practice to drink in the presence of a prospective client, but it seemed less and less likely the kid was one.

"I grew up in that house", he continued. "It's a nice neighbourhood and everything, but I have to get the house emptied so it could be sold. I work here in downtown, and it would be impractical for me to commute..."

"To the point, kid", I said.

The young man looked at me saying at nothing and then sighed. "Okay, perhaps it's best if I just show you."

He unzipped his back bag, rummaged it for a while and then handed me a piece of red cloth. A red mask with goggles. I looked it in my hands and then glanced at the image on the laptop screen. 

There was a moment's silence as we looked at each other. The kid looked nervous, like he was both excited and afraid to hear my reaction. 

"I could say it may very well be a Halloween mask", I said finally. "But I guess you have come to conclusion it is not."

The young man shrugged and let out a deep sigh. "Truth to tell, I don't know what to think. I wish my mother was alive. She could corroborate whether that thing I found really is what I think it is."

He looked up at me and I got the feeling he wanted to convince himself as well me that what he said wasn't insane. 

"I mean, my father must have told her. Whether he really was... you know. Whether that's all what was left of the suit. Was it my father who threw it away, but wanted to keep the mask as a keepsake? Or my mother? Anything."

"You don't have any idea what was your father's reason to..." I searched for the right word. "Well, retire?"

The young man shrugged. "He and my mother getting married? Me being born? His career at the Bugle? Your guess is as good as mine."

I took another glance at the computer screen. "None of the newspaper articles say anything about this... Spider-Man being a psychic. So I guess there's more than just the visions."

The kid nodded and then looked at the whiskey bottle on my desk. 

"May I?" he said. Not exactly sure what he meant I nodded and watched as he grabbed the bottle. After he had made sure the cork was screwed in tightly he lifted the bottle before him and then straightened his fingers. The bottle should have fallen down but it stayed in place, almost as if it was glued to his palm. He held his hand at me. 

"Take it", he said.

Feeling like a member of an audience at a magician's performance, I reached out and took hold of the bottle. To my surprise it didn't budge. I pulled again, this time more forcefully, but with same results. I looked at the kid, but he looked like he didn't even have to strain himself. Then it seemed he did something, and the bottle came off. I looked at it in my hands and then put it back on the table. 

"Nice trick."

"My eyesight has gotten better, too. I've had to wear glasses ever since I was five, but now I don't need them anymore. At work I have explained everyone I've started using contacts. And I seem to be getting... well, stronger as well."

"So, let's get this straight", I sighed, knowing I was sounding cold and more harsh than it was necessary. "You think your father was a superhero in seventies, and your latent powers have now for some reason blossomed. And suddenly you have the proportional abilities of a spider, just like your father did. Is that it?"

The young man leaned over and pressed his face into his palms again. "Oh god. It sounds so absurd when you put it like that."

I let him digest it all for a while. I had a feeling no one had ever said that aloud before. 

"Another drink?" I said and the kid nodded. I poured him one and watched as he took a sip, grimacing barely noticeably this time. 

"I know this all sounds crazy", he said looking at me. "And I know you must have more important things to do than listen to me. It's just, there's no one I can talk about this. Literally no one. I just..."

Suddenly the young man fell silent. His eyes looked glazed, and it was almost as is he was watching something only he could see.

"Get down!" he yelled and before I knew what was happening, he had lunged over the desk, we were on the floor next to the wall and rapid gunfire started destroying everything in its path. 

From the sound of it there was more than one shooter, two or perhaps three. The firing continued long enough for my eardrums to start hurting. After it stopped I stayed motionless for a moment. 

"Nice reflexes, kid", I said finally and got on my knees. The young man beside me started getting up as well, but I stopped him. 

"Stay down."

"W-what was that?" he squealed. I gave him a glance and noticed he was covered in shards of glass just like everything around us. His eyes were filled with terror as he looked up to me.

"Unfinished business", I grunted behind my teeth as I peered out of what was left of my windows. 

Even though it was dark outside, I was able to see two figures on a rooftop of the opposite building, before they disappeared from my sight. Damn. I thought I had made my point clear.

"Look kid", I said. "I'd love to continue this chat of ours, but there's couple of things I need to do first."

I looked down on him, still laying on his back and looking at me with widened eyes.

"Wanna tag along?"  
  
  


AFTERWORD

I guess anyone who has read this far realizes this story is a homage to what is not the greatest audiovisual superhero interpretation of all time. It is also my way of giving the series in question a conclusion it would have deserved but never got. Even if it is only a head canon one.

The story takes place three years before the first season of Jessica Jones. Therefore I am not perfectly sure how that will fit together with the Killgrave storyline, but then again, this world isn't 100% identical with the one we know.

One interesting piece of information is the fact that the old newshound Ben Urich from Daredevil series and this version of Peter Parker are basically the same age. Considering they were both reporters, it is more than probable they crossed paths, who knows, perhaps even worked together. 

This part of late Peter Parker's past, however didn't fit the story, even though getting it in would have been pretty neat. Sometimes you have to kill your darlings. Besides, even if Spider-Man did disappear from the public eye, it doesn't necessarily mean Peter stopping using his powers. 

But I guess that would be another story.


End file.
